


The Basement

by UAs_Fics



Series: Pre-Game [1]
Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Emotional/Psychological Abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-31
Updated: 2017-03-31
Packaged: 2018-10-13 02:56:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,642
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10504971
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/UAs_Fics/pseuds/UAs_Fics
Summary: Flowey ventures down into the basement agianst his father's wishes.





	

Title: The Basement

Rating: T

Fandom: Undertale

Summary: Flowey decides to investigate the basement.

Content Warning: Abuse, Character Death

Other: this fic has an audio reading availableon youtube  
https://youtu.be/CyhntljXCLo

~~~~~~~~~~~

Flowey made his way slowly toward the castle. He’d just helped the Snowdin innkeeper’s child find an old family recipe that their great grandparents hid in a small cave in the cliff face in Snowdin Forset.

Flowey promised to help them climb up the steep cliff side, which, with his vines, was no difficult task.

Just like the last few timelines. Pointless drivel, day in and day out. Help the bunny kid into the cave, come back to the castle, tell Asgore of that days adventures, get ready to help a vulkin in Hotland pick a special flower for it’s sweetheart in the morning. Flowey heaved a sigh. It was all so tedious. No matter what he did, there was no changing the outcome—he had tried.

XxxxxxxxxxxxxX

Flowey paused just outside the doorway to Asgore’s throne room. It was more of a garden now, what with the golden flowers that had been planted. They had begun to overtake the room, Flowey thought. 

When Flowey first came back, it was in this garden. He remembered being scared and struggling and wondering, "Why can’t I feel my arms? Or my legs? How do I move? Where am I? Where is Chara? Why did their plan fail?"

Flowey shook his petals. It didn’t matter now. All that mattered was reaching the end of this timeline for what felt like the millionth time. It was as if there were switches that turned on only when he met a certain condition: gave a specific monster a specific item, delivered a message to someone, went to a certain place. Until that condition was met, Flowey couldn’t advance anymore, as if the world wouldn’t let him advance. He would just help everyone with their problems and gain a one sided ‘friendship’ along the way, just like always.

Flowey tilted his head to the side in thought as he gazed down the rest of the hall past the throne room. 

The basement, Asgore claimed, was unsafe. He told Flowey that one of the support pillars had a couple cracks all the way around and it was liable to break if someone wasn't careful down there. Nonetheless, he was curious about the state of the basement. It wasn't like anything could kill him, not permanently, anyway, not a rock slide or an overly playful royal guard or the bubbling magma in Hotland, surely not a collapsing room. Not that it mattered if the room did cave in. He could always escape with ease. There were always save points to jump back to at nearly any moment in time.

Flowey peeked into the throne room.

Asgore sat in his throne, reading a book on gardening that Flowey remembered him having even before his death. The king was so engrossed in the book that Flowey knew he could easily slip by and check out the basement.

Flowey ducked down into the earth and popped up at the top of the basement stairs. He looked back at the doorway to make sure Asgore hadn't heard the cracking of stone as he'd pushed back up. A giggle of excitement was stifled. Something new; a different area! Something he’d never done before. Something that might even change the ending.

For a second, Flowey supposed he should feel guilty for disobeying his father, for going into to this dangerous area, but nothing rose up in him.

Never mind that, he thought.

Steeling himself for whatever he might find, Flowey hesitantly made his way down the stairs. With giddy vines, he reached up and pushed against the heavy door. He stiffened as the door scraped across the floor. He waited a moment. Asgore didn't rush over to investigate the commotion. Once he knew the coast was clear, Flowey entered the dark room.

When Chara was still alive, the two of them would go down into the basement sometimes to play a game called ‘Cave Explorers’. Chara said this was a very popular game among human children. Though Flowey never found much appeal in the game, he always went along with Chara as they both ventured into the dark cavern in search of a great treasure or a missing hero.

Now Flowey was alone.

There was a light switch near the door but that is not how you play Cave Explorers! Chara always made the two go for as long as they could before turning on the light.

Flowey squinted, trying to make out shapes in the dim light from the stairwell. Before, the basement was filled with junk—old toys and books, furniture and chests, and any other items given to the king and queen by monsters over the years that custom dictated they keep, but that was no longer the case.

The light filtering in from the cracked door shone towards what looked like a row of boxes that reached to the back wall of the basement. Flowey furrowed his brow in thought. What could these boxes be? He could see something leaned against the side of the nearest box. Cautiously, he moved toward it and reached out a vine to touch it.

“Flowers?” Flowey frowned, feeling a little let down at the bouquet of dried blossoms. Pulling his stem out of the ground, Flowey ran a vine over the top of the box. It was smooth and had a slight upward slope to it. A heart shape was carved near the top. Leaning back, Flowey slid the top of the box over an inch. He slipped a vine inside and felt around. More disappointment came as he felt nothing but scraps of cloth.

Rolling his eyes, he moved to the next box. On the outside, the same smooth slope with a heart shaped carving. However, this time when Flowey reached a vine in, he felt something different. Fabric around a soggy bundle of sticks? He squeezed. A gummy, muffled snap quickly followed. Uttering a word he knew his father would not be pleased with, Flowey stretched a vine back to flick on the lights. He blinked a moment, adjusting to the brightness. Carefully he lifted the top of the box to see just what he had broken. If Flowey still had a heart, it would have stopped at the sight before him.

A girl, a human girl, lay in the box—no, in the coffin—with her arms crossed over her chest. The skin of the corpse was squishy and rotted. Half of her thin hair was tied into a braid, loosened with time. It was the kind of braid Flowey remembered their mother would sometimes give to Chara. The other side of her hair lay loose, falling out.

Flowey glanced down at the corpses leg with a wince. He knew his squeeze had broken the bone. He shook his head and glanced back at the doorway before he returned his gaze to the girl.

“Huh?” Flowey raised an eyebrow before bending down close to the corpse. There was something underneath her clasped hands. Gently, Flowey lowered her hands to reveal a deep puncture at her collar bone. Then he noticed the two holes in the fabric of her shirt, the same distance from the center wound, all of them the same as…

For a moment, Flowey couldn’t comprehend it. His father had done this? No, that couldn’t be. That old man couldn’t hurt a whimsun, let alone a human. Those holes couldn’t have come from Asgore’s trident! Could they?

Without a thought of the noise he was making, Flowey went to the next coffin and yanked off the lid. Another corpse lay inside. Unlike the other, it’s skin was charred and flaky. Its hands were clasped over its chest. The front of this one’s once crisp, white shirt was burned. The lenses of their glasses had soot on them.

In disbelief, Flowey checked the rest of the coffins. More corpses, more stab wounds, more burn marks. He looked down on the last of the six humans. This one was smaller than even Chara had been when they first met. Her hair was tied carefully back away from her face with a purple bow and a deep, jagged wound slashed across her stomach. Flowey almost felt pity for her. She probably didn’t stand a chance against the king.

The sound of footsteps tore his gaze from the body. The heavy steps, Flowey knew, belonged to his father. Despite knowing the trouble he'd be in, Flowey didn’t escape back to his previous save outside of Snowdin. He couldn’t. This was completely new! He had to know what would happen.

“Who is down here? This place is off limit—” Asgore’s booming voice stopped once he entered the room.

Flowey lowered himself back to his normal height.

Asgore’s eyes widened at his son and all the open coffins.

Flowey watched with a grin, eyes twinkling as Asgore took shaky steps toward an the second coffin. He rested a hand on the edge and peered in. The King of All Monsters had tears pooling in the corners of his eyes. He raised his hand as if to reach in, maybe to fix her loose braid, but stopped. Slowly, he turned toward Flowey.

They stood in heavy silence for a long moment before Flowey finally spoke. “You did this, didn’t you, Dad? You killed them.”

Asgore’s mouth opened and shut a few times before he lowered his gaze. “Yes,” he managed to respond. He raised his head, tears streamed down his cheeks. “But, please, Asriel, understand, I-I had to. It was the only way we could free everyone, and without you or your mother, I—”

Flowey raised his vines to pat his father's arm in reassurance. “Golly, Daddy! I understand! You’re a king. You have to do what’s best for everyone. Even if that means getting some blood on your hands. Right, Daddy?” Flowey moved closer to Asgore. “Besides, I’m sure you made each of these human’s ends quick, right? I mean, they all look like children, so they couldn’t have been that strong, could they? Like this one!” Flowey reached up and pointed a vine at the last coffin. “This one looks like they were just a little older than Chara and I were! They couldn’t have put up too much resistance when you gave them your orange attack and slashed them in—”

“STOP IT, ASRIEL!” Asgore shouted. He had fallen to his knees as Flowey moved closer, one hand holding his face, the other gripping the coffin tightly. Both the monster king and the coffin shook slightly.

For a moment, Flowey almost couldn’t believe this. He watched as his strong-willed, powerful father became a sniveling child, shaking and weeping from mere words.

Flowey could have stopped this at any time. He could have apologized or rewound back to Snowdin. Why didn’t he? He had been kind to monsters after he returned as a flower, even if he felt nothing for them. He had solved problem after problem after problem flawlessly and made so many people smile and laugh. It had stopped bringing satisfaction. It was almost boring now. But this—making people cry, hurting people—this was new to him. He had never acted this defiantly before.

He turned his thoughts back to his father, still crying on the floor.

“I wonder,” Flowey tapped his chin with the tip of a vine, “if it was Chara who came back, not me, would you have killed them too, Father? I mean, you only need one more human soul to free everyone.”

The king’s shaking abruptly stopped. He stiffly raised his head. His eyes, once overflowing with joy and kindness, were now flooded with grief and sorrow.

A feeling that Flowey had never felt before swelled in him. This feeling of amusement was different, stronger, darker than anything he'd ever felt before. If he kept bringing up Asgore’s sins, how long would it take before the grief was gone and his eyes were emotionless?

Let’s find out! 

“Would you have stabbed them? Maybe even burned Chara alive? Gosh, that would really hurt them. And you would have to watch them die, too. Oh! I know! You could have slipped poison into their cup of tea without telling them. Having them writhe in pain like before with an ‘illness’ would be a lot easier to take than spilling your child’s blood, wouldn’t it?”

Flowey reared up from a ground a bit. His face began to twist into something sharp and cruel. “Say, why didn’t you do that to these kids, Asgore? Why did you make them fight you when all they wanted was to go home? I bet you even fought them right here in the castle! They were so close to their homes, to their mommies and daddies and sisters and brothers. But then you came along and ripped it away from them!”

“A-Asriel, stop this, please!” Asgore begged. “I c-can’t—I didn’t want—"

“Didn’t want to what, Asgore? Kill these six humans? Run Toriel off? Let me die?”

“Yes!” Asgore collapsed on the ground, sobbing into both of his hands.

After a moment, Flowey began to laugh. It was cold and sharp and dark. “Hey, Dad, do you want to know a secret?” He didn’t wait for a response. “I can time travel. I can go back to certain ‘save points’ if I die. I can go back to when I woke up in the garden, anytime I want. No one would know. I’ve done it lots and lots of times! I’ve saved lives, Dad. I’ve made lots of people happy! I've even brought you and Mom back together before!” He giggled a little.

Asgore sat up to look at his son. “W-what?”

Flowey rested a vine across Asgore’s shoulders. “Yeah, plenty of times! I know everything that will happen and how to solve every problem. It’s really boring now, being good all the time.” The vine wrapped around the king’s throat.

Asgore grabbed at the vines in an attempt to pry them from his throat.

Flowey raised himself out of the ground until he was face to face with Asgore. “I’ve exhausted all the ‘good’ endings, but none of the 'bad'.”

He watched Asgore’s face contort into a mixture of panic and betrayal.

Flowey knew he should feel awful for this. This wasn’t how a son was supposed to act. But he didn’t care. “Don’t be mad at me; I don’t want to do this,” he squeezed tighter around King Asgore’s throat, “but I have to know what the outcome will be if I do this.” Flowey let his features morph from smiling friendly flower to his soul-filled, innocent goat-like face. He whispered in his childhood voice into the king’s ear. “Don’t worry, you won’t remember a thing. You never do.”

With a swift jab forward, Flowey plunged a vine straight through Asgore’s chest with little resistance. Of course not. Why would there be? Asgore's defenses were so low after being taunted, Flowey could have beaten him with one hit from his magic pellets.

Asgore let out a strangled gasp as his body began to turn to dust.

Flowey released the king.

Before Asgore could even hit the floor, his body was turned to dust.

The flower lowered himself back down and watched as his father’s soul pulsed above the pile of dust that used to be his body. With a piercing laugh, Flowey swung out a vine and slashed the soul in half. He glanced once more at the coffins before heading toward the door. He reached up and shut off the light. Closing the door, Flowey let that dark impulse fill him. He couldn’t wait to see where this new ending would lead him.

**Author's Note:**

> I’ve always wondered what Flowey’s first reaction would be to finding out Asgore had killed 6 other humans while he was dead. And as I thought about it I somehow I thought maybe that would be the tipping point that really set Flowey off from being a ‘good’ person, and trying to kill everyone and all the endings in between and thus this fic was born!
> 
> lovingly edited by K


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